


Farewell My Friend

by Kimmimaru



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Anger, Grief/Mourning, Kidnapping, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7376785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimmimaru/pseuds/Kimmimaru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot based around the song 'Farewell my Friend' by Loner. I love Kunsel, he's so underrated and imagine being him, being told your best friend's dead? He went through a lot and we never knew what happened to him...so, this is my headcanon. I'm convinced that after Zack's escape from Nibelheim that Hojo went and kidnapped some new subjects (this is backed up by mentions of other experiments in The Kids Are All Right novella) and its sad and awful but I'm a sadist and had to write it. I'm not sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farewell My Friend

It couldn't be true. It just couldn't. Kunsel sat on a sofa in the nearly empty SOLDIER lounge, he had his head in his hands and for once his helmet was not covering his face. He had taken it off and lobbed it furiously at the wall, there was now a massive hole right in the centre of the ShinRa logo. He sat there, gritting his teeth as he fought back the urge to scream. He was angry. Angry and hurt. They kept trying to tell him Zack was dead but it couldn't be true. Zack couldn't be dead. It was impossible. When he had heard the news the first thing he had done was to go and visit Aerith, when he had explained to her the KIA message everyone had gotten she gave him a funny look and cocked her head to the side.

“He's not dead, Kunsel.” 

Just like that. Her tone of voice was so confident, so completely sure of herself that he almost believed her. He wanted to believe her. The scent of flowers still lingered on his uniform from when he had met her in the church, when his delicate composure had finally shattered she had sat with him on the floor and rubbed his back. The motion was soothing and he had finally calmed down enough to embrace her, she reminded him so much of his sister it was a little unsettling. She smiled at him and once again assured him Zack was alive and that he would come back, she was sure of it. He should return to his room, he could lie in bed and hopefully lose himself in sleep but he couldn't bring himself to move. He reached into his pocket in slow motion and, with a hand that shook almost too violently, he sent a brief e-mail to Zack. He swallowed a lump that had grown in his throat and shook his head quickly as he stuffed his phone back into his pocket and stood up. 

He never got a reply. Not to any of the messages he had sent.

Zack? Where are you man? Let me know you're alive...text me...e-mail me...anything! I have to know you're there. I want to help. If you're in trouble...

For five years those thoughts whirled around his head. He began to distrust ShinRa, he began to hate them. He looked at his comrades and saw only masks, false smiles and fake laughs. He saw plans and secrets and death everywhere he looked. It was too much, he couldn't take much more. He missed Zack. He was a constant hole in his chest now, an empty space that nothing could fill. His only consolation was his infrequent visits to Aerith, she helped ease his mind and her company was pleasant. He had no designs on Zack's girlfriend, he wasn't interested in her romantically but it was nice to talk to her about the man they had both known. Everyone else acted as if Zack had never existed. He had caught Cissnei whispering to one of the other Turks about him but other than that it was as if Zack had faded from everyone's memory. He was less than a dead man, he was a non-entity. That hurt. It hurt more than Kunsel could bare. He wanted nothing more than to scream at people, to remind them of the vibrant man that had once walked the halls. The man who had been more than a brother to him. At night he wept helplessly. He was so lost, so alone. 

Finally he heard the truth from a distraught Cissnei. Five years after Zack's initial disappearance he learned the sickening truth. Everyone knew that the army had started to move, apparently chasing some escaped subjects from Hojo's labs. Kunsel suspected he knew who it was, or at least one of them but when Cissnei had approached him with wide, unfocussed eyes and sat at his side in the SOLDIER lounge he had felt lead fill his stomach. She had put her face in her hands and whispered under her breath;

“He's dead.” 

It must have been a huge risk for her to tell him even that much, she stood a second later and shook her head as if she couldn't believe it herself. Kunsel had simply stared blankly at her as she had turned and walked away from him. It was the last time he ever saw her...or anyone else.

He sat on the sofa with the dent in the ShinRa Logo on the wall and stared blindly at it. He barely even noticed the soft sounds of multiple footsteps until a shadow fell over him. He blinked and looked up. “Who're you?” He asked as he gazed up at a man in a white coat. 

“Come with us please.” The man had said firmly.

“What? Why?” Kunsel's voice broke a little and he stood up.

“Come with us, now.” The man repeated.

“Look, I just got some bad news, c-can this wait?” He asked hoarsely. He wanted to grieve, he wanted to work out what he was supposed to do now that Zack was well and truly gone from his life.

“No. Come with us.”

The man was like a broken record but before Kunsel could open his mouth to speak again hands grabbed him, holding him firmly and he felt something sharp jabbed into his neck. As he fell into darkness he heard soft, vaguely familiar laughter and a man with glasses loomed above him as his knees gave way. He had enough strength to hiss his name; “Hojo.”

He didn't know how long he was kept in Nibelheim but it was long enough for him to forget who he was. He forgot what he had been. He forgot his family, his friends and he forgot Zack. He became little more than a zombie. A zombie with a tattoo on his right hand. No will. No sense of self. Kunsel was dead. Killed in action, if you believed the news papers. His family did and they held a small service for him, the only people who remembered him.


End file.
